


underneath the pouring rain (i never will, amen)

by ampere



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 11:15:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1345468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ampere/pseuds/ampere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They go through tall grass and broken sticks, waddle through wet dirt before Louis declares they’re in the middle of the field.</p><p>He lets Zayn set up his station in favor of dragging a log towards where they’re situated.</p><p>“Better be good,” Louis says, “if I’m gonna end up with blisters in my bum for it.”</p><p>Zayn’s fingers start to shake when he hears that, thinks that maybe Louis has given him permission to draw him but Louis shakes his head and Zayn knows he’s sadly mistaken.</p><p>“Don’t draw me, Zayn. Not when you have the whole world to draw instead.”</p><p>Honestly, Zayn fails to see the difference.</p><p>Zayn feels oddly like crying when he starts to paint the soft green of the grass, the faded tips of yellow, the horrible contrasting gray line of the sky.</p><p>He just wants to paint Louis, and he has no idea why that’s so much to ask for.</p><p>He thinks the earth pities him, when the first drop hits his canvas dead center, melts the paint away into a murky brown.</p><p>or</p><p>Zayn is an artist, Louis doesn't think he's beautiful and it rains a lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	underneath the pouring rain (i never will, amen)

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, ok so this was supposed to be for the zouis ficathon when it first started but then someone had already filled this [prompt](http://louisarse.livejournal.com/5255.html?thread=11911#t11911) and I was like well that's that. Then out of nowhere I had the urge to finish it and here we are. I wanted this to be posted on the one year anniversary of [not that i am special, not that you're some work of art](http://archiveofourown.org/works/728111) because both stories have similar aspects and ideas but darn it! I missed the mark!
> 
> Anyway, special thanks to my little sister, who honestly was the best at hearing me complain about this story and threatened me numerous times to finish this already!
> 
> And sorry for all the rain and awkward use of the bible and religion.
> 
> Title from Motion City Soundtrack's Last Night

It’s humid, it irritates him and sleep becomes _unbearable_. There’s already sweat condensing on his skin and he smells rank. His throat feels dry, all choked up on the humidity in the air.

Breakfast is an apple gone a couple of days over ripe. It’s mushy and sweet, Zayn almost wants to spit it out but he’s in no place to be picky.

He wobbles over to the bathroom, body still fighting anything that isn’t sleep. From the tiny (and only) window he has he gets a lovely view of a brick wall and a dark alley. Zayn pulls the plastic flower curtain away from the bathtub (the only indulgence Zayn seem to be able to afford) and takes out his easel and canvases, sets them up and takes out the little paint tubes from his mirror medicine cabinet.

When Zayn had first gotten his apartment (concrete box more than anything) he had looked at the window and the yellow washed walls of the bathroom and declared it his studio. Drawing inspiration from the occasional warm breeze or chirp of a bird. Now he looks at the dark red brick, the white cement gluing them together, and back at his canvas (full of thick lined squares in various shades of red).

He hasn't painted anything in _ages_ , nothing but boxes over and over and the droopy, over saturated with water, acrylic paint lines that feel like a thunderstorm with no sun as a promised finale afterward. And those don’t sell because no one wants brick walls and water drops turned tears dragging down the happy feeling of their home. The last painting he sold (a couple of weeks ago) had been a little girl on a swing in the style of rococo. And it hadn’t sold for much, it was dwindling away (even with Zayn refusing to touch the money in the drawer) to rent and the air system and running water.

He sticks a paintbrush into a cool blue (he’s got no idea what type of blue it’s supposed to be, just that it was expensive, at this point Zayn cares less about the colors and more of what they can be) and colors in a square. And that’s different, that has to sell, _right?_

He busies himself with filling in squares with hues of blues, careful not to go past the lines. Time passes like that, until the clock from the church down the street strikes three o’ clock. He pushes everything back into the bathtub, pulls out old canvases (full of carefully painted tulips and pretty ladies in frivolous dresses) and leans them against the wall, washes his face and puts on a shirt over his paint covered chest. He ends up leaving lines of dried paint over his hair when he runs a hand through it to make it look kept. He picks his paintings up, grabs his canvas bag where it’s leaning over the only chair he owns and runs down the stairs as he stuffs his canvases in his bag for safe keeping.

The arts fair is never crowded, because no one expects to find good art. But Zayn still sets up his little corner, puts his smaller canvases (with the more minuscule details) out front and his larger canvases as a backdrop. He gets a couple of bystanders, interested but not enough to buy. Not his art, it’s too old, too boring. Sometimes Zayn wishes he had strained from classical and realism, thinks of his dismal attempts of abstract and cubism shoved into his bathtub.

A couple of girls pass by, ask for his number, and he shakes his head and apologizes (he can’t afford that type of luxury).

The sun takes it’s time setting (lazy from the warmness that summer brings to everyone even the sun) and Zayn sells one painting (of a cat that had climbed up to the bathroom’s windowsill, ginger haired and golden eyed.) He stuffs the bills into his pocket, and smiles as he tries to pack everything up before the sun sets and it gets too dangerous.

He stumbles over a flier, handwritten in spiky lettering proclaiming to call a _Liam Payne if you want a cheap road trip to Italy_. There’s a number and a lot of smiley faces. Zayn snorts at it but (for some odd reason) folds the paper up neatly and slips it in the bag with the rest of his unwanted work.

-

His stomach is angry, growling and coiling into itself from missing lunch and such a miserable breakfast. He won’t get food until tomorrow, so he digs around the kitchen drawers and finds a pack of unfinished cigarettes. He lights one up with the flame from the burner of his stove and wonders to the bathroom, cracks the window open a bit and sits on the toilet.

He wakes up hungry with the dull throb of hunger over his gut. It’s raining, a heavy downpour that washes the streets away and brings the earthy smell of all the chemicals residing in the earth. (Zayn never understood the extent of pollution and how present it was in all the things he loved until now).

He moves everything out of his bathtub, splatters himself with cold water and a bar of soap and runs down the street in a thin windbreaker and soggy shoes to the corner store. He gets pears and some bread rolls, cold cuts and (because he deserves some happiness) and candy bar. And just like that, half of his profit from yesterday leaves him.

Lunch and dinner is sandwiches, and pear slices. And dessert is half of his chocolate bar. His stomach sloshes around with the insane amount of water he’s consumed and he knows that his stomach concaving slightly like that isn’t really good. But he _feels_ healthy and happy and he laughs at the feast he’s had for the day.

The days that come aren’t as good, it rains for days and days and Zayn loses track of his days spent smoking and frying turkey ham and eating half of a half of a half of his candy bar. He distracts himself with painting, until he runs out of clean canvases and he cringes as he thinks of a solution. He pulls out a pail of white paint and sweeps off the small amount of dirty clothes that has gathered over his canvas bag, he turns it over, watches as his canvases clunk to the ground, tries to see which one he’s going to paint over clean. And then his eye catches the little folded paper, gone wrinkled at the folds.

He knows what it is before he reaches for it, remembers all the smiley faces and the name and the crooked phone number. He thinks of the money he has in his beside drawer and the sudden wall he’s hit of deconstructed bricks and runny gray blue tears on his canvases. He bites his fingernail, gnaws at it until he gets too close to the flesh under and it stings with the tender feeling of the new skin there, unprotected now. He spits the crescent of the nail he’s bitten out and grabs his keys from the kitchen counter.

There’s a pay phone in front of the church on his street, and he finds enough change to make a call, dials the number under Liam Payne’s name and counts the rings that follow. He counts up to eight, is about to hang up and mourn the lost of his change when someone picks up.

“ _Hello?_ ” they say and Zayn looks at the flier in his hand (gone soggy from the rain that’s started again).

“Liam?” he asks, “Payne, Liam Payne?”

There’s the sounds of shuffling and bed springs creaking and then, “ _Yeah, that’s me._ ”

Zayn licks his lips, thinks of his small apartment and his paintings and the empty refrigerator. And then he thinks of Italy, with its art ( _art like Zayn’s!_ ) and charming locals and quaint cities. And, really, it’s not that hard to decide.

“I was calling about the trip to Italy?” he says, drags out his words in his nervousness.

“ _Oh, oh!_ ” Liam says from the other end, “ _are you interested?_ ”

“Y-yeah,” Zayn nods to reassure himself, “I am very much interested.”

 _“Awesome, I was getting worried no one would want to before I had to leave. Need someone to take shifts with me driving,_ ” he adds.

“Yeah, I can do that, I don’t sleep much,” Zayn mumbles.

“ _Cool, so is this your number? So I can call you and give you more details later?_ ”

Zayn looks around, the sidewalk gone slick with the rain and shining under the streetlamp.

“Yeah, you can call me here,” he says.

“ _Ok,_ ” Liam says excitably, “ _what’s your name?_ ”

“It’s Zayn,” he answers quickly.

-

A week passes by of Zayn painting over his canvases, one each day and filling them with sharp lines of technicolor, something that brings the red heat of shame to his cheeks at how far away art has gotten from it’s golden years, delicate strokes and spectacular realism and the meticulous blending of colors.

He takes those to the arts fair instead (along with his bricks and his blue blob) and gets nothing for them.

He manages a fitful sleep, the type that takes forever to get into and nothing to get out of, when he wakes up to the far away ringing down the street. His mouth feels like cotton and his body has gone sore from the bad sleep, before his eyes peel back and he skids out of bed, forgets his shoes and feels the rough grittiness of the damp cement against his feet as he tries to get to the phone in time.

He’s out of breath and his feet hurt but he reaches the phone before it gives its last ring.

“Yeah?” he wheezes and there’s silence at the other end.

“ _Zayn?_ ” someone finally asks, “ _it’s Liam._ ”

“Hi,” Zayn coughs, tries to get his breath back, “hello.”

“ _Hey,_ ” Liam says, Zayn can hear the rustling of papers, “ _so tomorrow good?_ ” he asks and Zayn freezes a bit at the question before Liam elaborates, “ _that’s enough time to pack lightly and get on the road, right?_ ”

“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn nods even if Liam can’t see, “perfect.”

“ _Well, that’s good,_ ” Liam laughs and it sounds far away and odd from the other end, “ _just give me your address and I’ll pick you up at sunset._ ”

“How much?” Zayn finally remembers and thinks of the bit of money he has to his name.

“ _Just give me what you got,_ ” Liam says simply, “ _can’t charge you what you don’t have._ ”

Zayn packs a duffle bag with some clothes and his things (essential things) and paints over his canvases again, lets them dry over night and carefully puts them inside his canvas bag.

-

His stomach is in jitters and he eats a pear to keep it from growling too angry at Zayn. The day drags on and it’s one of those rare days when the sun pushes through the clouds and it’s too hot and too wet from the leftover rain.

The sky’s gone bright orange with the setting sun and there’s a hot breeze seeping through the crack of the building’s door as Zayn waits for Liam to roll up his street. He looks up when there’s a beep, and an out of shape looking van and Zayn waits for another blare of the horn before he collects his things from the doorsteps and steps into the hot day.

“You Zayn?” the boy in the front asks and Zayn nods, “awesome, I’m Liam, get in.”

Zayn gives his life savings (which isn’t a lot, not with the art he’s been doing lately) away in a yellow envelope and Liam doesn’t even bother counting it, instead turns on the radio and assures Zayn that his things would be ok if he leaves them at the back of the van. Which is cluttered with luggage and blankets and garbage.

The traffic out of London is horrible and Zayn spends a lot of dusk squinting against the glare of the sun against the front window and inhaling the exhaust from other cars.

“What you do for a living, Zayn?” Liam asks as the van moves an inch into traffic.

“I paint,” Zayn says quickly, “just got out of art school.”

“That’s pretty sweet,” Liam smiles at him, moves the car a bit more, “that why you wanna come with me then?”

And it’s something like that, something almost like the Hajj to Mecca, a hopeful journey to find his muse, a peaceful state of mind, find the reason for his being.

“Maybe,” Zayn smiles and Liam smiles back.

They take turns driving, Liam in the day, vibrant and chatty and a bit reckless at driving in his excitement and haste. And Zayn at night, with Liam mumbling sleepy conversation and slowing down his drive in weariness of the things he can’t see in the dark road.

He learns that Liam has a boyfriend, in some part of Rome, learning how to cook. So that’s their first stop, that’s where they’re heading and then Zayn is on his own. And that’s ok, it’s more than ok, with all the traveling and inspiration Zayn can get from wondering around just Rome alone.

They go through dirt roads, fields of nothing but grass and herds of cows and wild horses in the horizon. And they go through cities, small and large and all so alive and blistering hot.

That’s the only constant, the sweltering heat of summer over Europe and the rattlesnake rattle of the van’s engine. Some nights he listens to the soft chirping of crickets and the rustling of grass and others it’s the sound of traffic and the sounds of human activity.

They stop at the side of a dirt road, head lights on, Zayn can see the dust particles, tries to catch them from the rock he’s sitting on.

“You wanna see a picture of him?” Liam asks, takes out his wallet and shows Zayn a blurry picture of curls and a bridge of a nose.

“Who’s that?” Zayn asks, flicks the picture with his fingers.

“That’s my boyfriend,” Liam smiles, takes the picture back, “he’s pretty right?”

Zayn nods, those are the prettiest out of focus curls he’s ever laid eyes on.

He falls asleep on the hood of the car, Liam in the back on top of the luggage, looking at the inky darkness and trying to count the stars in the sky. Trying to remember the right kind of yellow to paint them in.

-

There’s mopeds whizzing around him, the sun high and dry (nothing like the dampness of London) and people bumping against him, hurrying up the narrow streets.

His bag suddenly feels heavy with the rich colors and thin paintbrushes he starved himself over to have.

Liam had smiled at him, said this was their stop, when Zayn declined meeting his boyfriend, and suddenly his legs had forgotten how to walk from the days spent inside the car.

There’s talk (about what, Zayn doesn’t know, it’s not English, probably Italian) and it makes Zayn’s head a bit dizzy at the speed of it, the choppy feel of the words and phrases he doesn’t understand. He walks on, up and down and then over again the streets he doesn’t know, that are littered with children and fruit stands. His stomach growls and he’s hungry but he has no money with him, it all went away with Liam and his boyfriend.

He takes another turn (different than the one he had been taking five times in a row) and he figures he’s in the downtown district of whatever city he’s in. Everything is more crowded and louder, dirty at the edges. There’s more restaurants, quaint little things and the smell of food and spices reaches him, warm and thick and nurturing. He sighs and bites his lip, wonders if he can get food with a bat of his lashes and a smile.

He’s about to take a step closer to a cafe when a little girl runs into him, turns back to look at him as she gets up and continues running down the road. He frowns, touches at his stomach where the dull pain of her headbutt blossoms and shifts his bag over his shoulder. It all goes quiet for a split second and he can hear it, notes from the strings of a guitar, slow and languid like the heat and the smells on the street. He backs away, follows the path the little girl took, takes steps and turns towards the music, he walks away from the clutter of the city, into the dusty outskirts littered with one or two meat and fruit stands, and a rundown looking fountain, covered in moss and pitifully sprouting out water. There’s a boy perched on the ledge, guitar case open and on the ground.

He’s ok until the boy starts singing, quivery little sounds, sweet and tiny. Like his voice is almost too shy, like it hasn’t been out for a while and it needs some time to grow. The boy starts to sing and the clouds inch away from the sun. And it’s pretty little notes and golden skin marred with heavy tattoos and (when the boy finally looks up from his guitar) blue eyes that look sleepy and a bit sad. They make Zayn’s fingers twitch and his mind race at all the ways he can draw this boy. Sketch him out all rough and then try (and maybe fail) to get the slight curve of his lashes. The sharp curve of his cheeks. The lines of his short legs the dainty slope of his nose.

He moves forward and the boy frowns, averts his eyes and smiles at the kids leaving coins in his case. The clouds overcast the sun again, send shadows over the boy’s face and he watches as he licks his lips, clears his throat to start a new song. And it’s in English and that makes Zayn _happy_. Because it’s someone who can understand him and it’s a reason to talk to the boy.

_Who can make the sun rise_

_Sprinkle it with dew_

_Cover it with choc'late and a miracle or two_

_The Candy Man_

_Oh, the Candy Man can_

_The Candy Man can_

Zayn smiles at that, almost laughs at the choice of song. But the kids seem to enjoy it. 

By the time the kids leave, it’s gotten darker with clouds. Thick and heavy and just ready to burst. 

He takes slow steps towards the fountain where the boy had hopped off the ledge and is bend over his guitar case. 

“Excuse me,” he says, hopes the boy knows more English this just the songs. 

The boy sticks the coins in the pocket of his jeans and turns to look at Zayn.

“Oh,” he says, backs away a bit, “yeah?” 

Zayn almost sighs in relief, smiles wide and easy and the boy looks taken a back.

“I was wondering if you could help me. I’m not really from here,” he explains.

“Help with what?” the boy asks.

Zayn smiles wider and shifts his weight to the balls of his feet, “some things.” 

The boy looks at him, through narrow eyes before he sags forward, “You have to carry my things then.”

The boy introduces himself as Louis, sweet talks some apples from an elderly lady and charms a room out of the local motel.

Zayn barely gets a word in before he’s in a tiny room, dusty and with sun flooding in. Louis yawns, strips his shirt over his head and reaches for his guitar.

“That enough help?” he mumbles as he bows his head and starts a string of notes.

“How…” Zayn licks his lips, tries to make himself sound less awed and more thankful, “how you managed that?”

Louis shrugs, a minuscule movement of his golden shoulders, flicking his fringe out of his eyes, “you just gotta look pathetic enough to get what you want.”

Zayn sits on the only bed (a small cot like thing with thin blankets), “I don’t think that’s what went down there.”

He grins, like Louis is kidding, like Louis knows he’s got the charm and the eyes and the smile to get the world to do anything for him.

Louis looks up, fingers curling tight, into a fist, “I’m pretty sure that’s _exactly_ what went down.”

His eyes have gone steely and his mouth is a hard line. So Zayn drops it and makes mental notes of the wrinkles on Louis’ forehead and the angle of the stray strand of hair at the top of his head.

He wakes up to Louis sleeping on the floor, the side of his face pushed into the floor, legs bent over him a bit so the curve of his bum sticks out a bit.

He’s still half asleep and his eyes are too heavy, limbs still not alert enough. But he grabs his bag and takes out his sketchbook, fingers clumsy as he reaches for a pencil.

He takes his time, in the pale morning sun and the small breeze that sneaks over the small window. He makes sure to get the curves of his body, neck to shoulder, shoulder to back, back to bum and bum to legs. Zayn gets down a general shape of Louis when the other boys starts to shift, squirms on the floor and opens his eyes in slow motion, as if time has stopped just so Zayn could have this moment. The flutters of his lashes and the deep blue of his eyes misty from sleep. Louis’ face is still pink from the warmth of sleep and he smacks his lips as he tries to get the dry taste out of his mouth.

“You’re still here,” Louis comments, like Zayn could go far in a foreign town, like Louis isn’t his only hope of not ending up starved and homeless in this place.

“Yeah,” Zayn nods, closes his sketchbook, wipes the graphite that has rubbed on his fingers on his pants, “I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

Zayn’s mornings are mostly like that, waking up with Louis all sprawled on the floor, shirtless and in weird angles, guitar next to him, showing all the weird markings he’s let other people make on him. And Zayn starting a new sketch, of all the positions and all the sleepy faces Louis makes, catalogs all the tattoos that Zayn is never ending fascinated with. All the tattoos that Zayn thinks are perfect soulmates for his own, he thinks Louis must have known him in a past life, because it’s almost eerie how perfectly Zayn thinks their tattoos are meant to be. The deer and the wolf, the bird outline and the swallow, the heart on his hip and the heart on Louis’ arm. All the little doodles on his arm that look almost the same style as Louis’.

Zayn gets page after page of small curves and plush skin and long eyelashes fanned over cheekbones. His pencils become stubs and his fingers are always dirty with graphite.

Louis always wakes up, slow and languid and followed with the surprised look of Zayn still being there. Like no one’s ever stayed that long, certainly not a strange boy who picked him up one random afternoon.

Zayn doesn’t think about that, because this whole adventure is supposed to be unthought of. So he can just learn to paint all over again, outside rigid guidelines and norms, the things that have taken away his will and passion for art.

Zayn isn’t supposed to be thinking, of Louis or the way he looks really nice in the morning (or any time of the day really) and he’s not supposed to think about how all he can draw is blue eyes and soft lines and sharp bone structure. He’s not supposed to be thinking about how Louis is pretty and weird and so contradictory it makes his head hurt.

So he doesn’t.

(or at least he tries not to).

-

Louis leaves him to play songs by the fountain, he takes his guitar case, slings it over his shoulder and gives Zayn a mock salute. And Zayn picks up his paints and canvases and goes into the outskirts, just a bit close to Louis, close enough that he can see and hear him and pretend he’s not there for him.

He tries to paint the things around him. The trees and the dirt and the sky, the little kids running around. But Zayn has something else he’d rather paint.

It’s just that Louis is interesting and he’s this mystery that he picked up and never even thought over. He always keeps his head down as he paints, and he always misses the flicker of eyes Louis gives him.

Louis gathers the few coins he gets that day, walks up to Zayn, with sweat trickling down his temple and skin red from the blazing sun.

“Lets go to the market,” he says.

It’s as crowded as the first day Zayn stepped foot in it. It’s littered in fruit stands and fish markets, people screaming and yelling and just too many crowded lanes.

Louis takes a hold of his hand, a sweaty press of skin and laced fingers and pulls him through the mob of people.

They get apples and some fish and Louis bargains, offers smiles and words here and there and Zayn knows they barely used any of the money Louis made that afternoon. 

He doesn’t ask, knows how weird Louis gets when he asks how and why. 

“The kid down the street let me borrow his bike,” Louis says, once they go back to their room, “we should go down to the beach and cook this fish.”

-

The sand is warm under the bare skin on his feet. A weird semi solid feeling, it seeps through his toes and gets in his hair. Louis goes around looking for drift wood, rolls up his dirty jeans to his knees and walks near the shore, bends down every once in a while and sticks a piece of wood under his arm. Zayn stands there dumbly, watches the orange glow of the sun setting and the harsh line of the sea, watches the small silhouette of Louis, kicks some sand around when Louis jogs back to him, hair flopping over his eyes. 

“Help me make a fire,” Louis grunts, drops the heavy wood on the sand and reaches for the bags of fish and fruit he propped near a fallen log.

The fire is a steady flickering, casts shadows over Louis when he leans forward to turn the fish they’re cooking. Zayn rubs his hand together, where there’s sand sticking to his palms, his hands feeling rough from trying to ignite fire. He’s not used to this, getting his hands dirty and rough. His hands know nothing but delicate strokes and careful movements of paintbrushes.

“Here,” Louis says, the moon is heavy over them and the waves are a rush, a race to get to shore, reaching up high to get to the moon.

Zayn takes the stick Louis offers, probes at the charred skin of the fish, “thanks” he mumbles, cradles the fish away from the cool breeze.

“Careful with the bones,” Louis says, takes a bite of the fleshy side of the fish and offers a shy smile, a flicker of eyes and curls tighter into himself.

They eat in silence and Zayn realizes that he knows nothing of Louis but his name, realizes that suddenly he wants to know everything about him.

“You’ve got a last name?” Zayn asks after a while of listening to the waves crashing, hearing the faraway sound of people enjoying the cool night.

“Tomlinson,” Louis shrugs, chews slowly, “son of Tom, you know how it was," he says almost jokingly.

Zayn smiles, presses his tongue behind the row of his front teeth and Louis’ eyes go big, toes digging into the warm sand.

“Zayn Malik,” Zayn says, reaches his hand over the fire and offers it to Louis, “nice to meet yah.”

Zayn thinks the fire is going to burn the hair on his arm away before Louis blinks at him, eyebrows furrowed before he finally raises his hand, curls his fingers over Zayn’s hand and gives him a weak shake.

“And what does that mean?” Louis asks and Zayn shakes his head.

“Nothing important.”

-

Louis wakes up too fast one morning, catches Zayn with his sketchpad. His cheeks flush and he flips the book close, pulls at his ear and avoids Louis’ sleepy eyes, his mouth just awoken and _already_ forming a frown.

“What you doing?” he says groggily, the sun streams through the dirty window, hazy with bits and spots of dust, make Louis look soft and fuzzy, and warm.

“Nothing,” Zayn says, slides closer to the wall side of his bed, “just drawing.”

Louis slits his eyes, “drawing what?”

“I…uh…” Zayn swallows, tries to clutch his sketchbook close to his chest, but Louis moves fast and his movement is too strong, rips the book right from Zayn and flips to a page. 

Zayn can see from his corner, can see the dips and drops of Louis’ spine, his calves and thighs.

“This is me,” Louis hisses, flips through pages and pages of him sleeping and singing. Hair in his face, five o’ clock shadow slowly turning to a coarse stubble. The too delicate, almost feminine curve of his lashes, “this is me,” he repeats.

“Yeah,” Zayn says slowly, “you, just you ok.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, because Louis eyes flash with _something_ and then there’s the loud sound of tearing and Zayn watches as he rips off all the pages of him, all the soft presses of his pencils, the darker lines of the curves Zayn liked best, the scribbled notes of what colors to use.

“This isn’t me,” Louis says fiercely, “I don’t look like that, I don’t know who that is, but it’s not me.”

Zayn shakes his head, arms reaching up uselessly as Louis rips it all away.

Louis’ chest puffs up, angry bursts that Zayn just _doesn’t_ understand.

“I couldn’t help it,” Zayn says, almost a whisper, “you were too pretty not to draw.”

Louis freezes, hands dropping Zayn’s book, crumbling up the thick pages he’s gotten out of the binding.

“Is this what it is?” he asks, “take the pretty guy home, lull him into a false sense of security?” 

Zayn doesn’t answer, focuses his eyes on the way the light shifts with the rising sun.

“Get the pretty boy to let you in and then fuck him over, yeah? You’re that kind of creep? Get yourself off like that?” Louis looks furious, he reaches for his shirt on the floor, pulls it on and backs away from the bed, eyes still hard, “one problem Zayn. I’m _not_ pretty, _I’m_ not a pretty boy.”

The door slams close before Zayn gets a say, leaves a whoosh of air and the crumbled papers on the floor flutter sadly.

-

Louis isn’t at the fountain, he’s not down at the market. He’s so obviously missing, Zayn has no idea how to move around the small town. He makes a feeble last shot at the beach, can’t even enjoy the way the sand feels under him. Louis isn’t there, just the rolling waves and the sound of them crashing over shore. 

-

He’s got his eyes closed shut when the door to the room opens. The loud creaking of someone trying to be quiet. He shifts and Louis freezes, head dipped low.

“Forgot my guitar,” he grumbles.

Zayn sits up, lets the scratchy sheets gather over his lap, “Louis,” he says, “you can stay, I…I won’t draw you anymore.”

There’s a beat of silence, just the seagulls starting their trip to the shore. The faint crashing of waves over the sandy coast.

Zayn looks at Louis, the dark outline of his nose, his long eyelashes. The way his lips look so plump.

Louis hangs his head in defeat and Zayn smiles to himself, hopes the dark night shields his grin from Louis, when the boy drops down to the floor, curling into himself, without another word to Zayn.

It feels strangely like going back home, with Louis snoring on the floor and the heavy feeling of his presence.

Zayn sleeps well that night.

-

Zayn doesn’t keep his word, he wakes up a couple of days later, the day is clouded over and Louis’ cheeks are a faint pink, the imprints of the wooden floor pressed over his left cheek. His shirt is rucked up to the first lower knobs of his spine, delicate little curved lines that Zayn _has_ to draw, _has_ to try to imitate on paper.

He reaches for his sketchbook, realizes with a sinking heart that Louis has destroyed it, mangled and ripped and no longer of use. He searches for loose paper, tries to be quiet, clutching tightly to his charcoal pencil, the sun isn’t even rising yet, the pale early morning just starting to break over the sky. He rummages through the night stand next to his bed, winces when the little drawer squeaks open, loud and marring over the quiet atmosphere. His fingernails scrape over a leather cover, the gilded letters of the _Holy Bible_.

Zayn bites his tongue, thinks randomly to the times where there would be bibles broken into his locker at school, how he used to flip through them and think weirdly of the words in the pages as his peers thought weirdly of him and his practices. If he remembers correctly from all those unwanted holy words shoved at him, there are a couple of flimsy thin empty pages at the back of it. Weak pages holding words that the religion could never convey.

He turns the heavy book over, flips it open to the first empty page, next to the map of the old world. 

The paper pulls with the drag of his pencil, but the faint outline is enough to make Zayn feel he’s not wasting a good opportunity. 

He’s amazed at how easy he can still draw Louis, how well his hands think they know Louis’ body. 

Zayn bites down on his tongue, palms suddenly gone itchy with the thought of touching Louis, running the flat of his hands over his curved lines, his compact planes. Zayn doesn’t let himself think about it too much. Not with Louis’ odd behavior. But now, with the room dim in the too early morning, bible weighing down on his lap, Louis back home, all Zayn can think about is just how pretty Louis is. 

-

The days of summer are a semi sweet drag. The air is heavy with rain, a high humidity that hangs over them when the sun is just too weak to break over the clouds. 

With the rain comes Louis, cramped in their little motel room, watching the splatter of fat raindrops over their fogged up window. 

It’s a better view than Zayn’s old window. Overlooking a crowded alley of stands full of trinkets and oddities. Zayn thinks the people who go shop in them are odd. He likes to pretend to draw them when really he keeps a discrete eye on Louis, hair matted down from a couple of ventures out to the fountain, shirt gone and skin a golden hue, Zayn swears he has a tub of paint just for the skin on Louis. 

Louis reaches up to push his hair back, creating a swoop that Zayn immediately draws on the Louis on his bible. 

He’s ran out of clean pages, flipping through the pages. Drawing over verses. 

Zayn’s never been one to read the bible, no matter how many were kept being shoved at him. He thinks then, that god, Louis’ god, is doing him a favor when he reads the passage Louis’ curved line of his back goes through. 

_Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness._

Zayn thinks it’s fitting, when the night falls like ink spilling over, fast and almost unstoppable over them. 

Zayn can feel the heavy feel of it over his skin, down to his bones when Louis turns to curl facing him. 

“I’m not beautiful,” he says, “in the inside I’m just guts. Red and bloody and disgusting.”

“Louis,” Zayn starts to say, lifts his head up from his pillow. 

“And past that I’m just a jumble of failed attempts and mediocre ideals. No one loves that, no one thinks that’s beautiful so they leave. Just like you are Zayn.”

-

Louis whimpers while he sleeps.

It catches Zayn by surprise, his eyes are droopy and he thinks maybe he's imagined it. But then he hears it again. He can't help that he thinks it sounds nice, cute and belly warming. 

Zayn sits up at the loud noise of it, bites his tongue to keep from laughing and blinks when he feels the hot searing flash against his lower belly. The moon is out and the stars are poking brightly through the dark night. He can feel the way his cheeks flare up, the way his fingers twitch next to his sides.

Louis mumbles in his sleep, turns towards Zayn, his lashes over his cheekbones, mouth parted a bit.

Zayn watches him sleep, the rise and fall of his breath, listens to the small sounds he makes. He counts them as his seconds, closes his eyes and mutters numbers under his breath, trying to calm down, to keep his hands from reaching down his stomach, into his pants.

The lines of Louis are enticing, the way they stand out from the night, soft and curved, Zayn bites the inside of his cheek when he starts to think about how he’ll feel. How smooth and soft and warm Louis would be under his hands, shuddering and shimmery and beautiful.

He snags the inside of his cheek with his incisor, his hand wrapping over the the root of his dick. He tastes the metallic feeling of blood over the small sobs he squeezes out of himself.

“Louis,” he whines to himself, his hand not doing enough with his pants in the way.

He huffs at the ceiling, his thumb going over the slit, wiping the precome forming at the tip, he shakes at the feeling and flops on his belly. Trapping his dick in between his body and the mattress, hand stuck awkwardly under him.

He turns his face to look at Louis still sleeping on the floor, his eyelashes fluttering a tiny bit, his breathing even.

Zayn’s stomach clenches, his hips jutting down to the scratchy blanket under him. He chokes on a whine, it catches in his throat halfway before he can let go of it, drawn out and too loud in his ears.

His mind whirls trying to catch up to the moment, make sense of his body’s reaction, his legs spread further, the blanket over him slipping to the floor, he warm night air hitting his damp skin.

He buries his face into the hot pillow, bites hard into it and lets himself rut against his mattress shamelessly.

-

He has to skip his morning sketch of Louis to change his briefs sticking to his thighs. He winces when he peels them off, washes them in the tiny sink in their tiny bathroom and twists them into a tight ball, his cheeks burn with shame as he puts them to dry, all for Louis to see.

He decides to let Louis wake up alone, a change of pace and hopefully enough distance to stop his body from being too bloody greedy for Louis.

He gets some of his small canvases, his little tubes of paint and tucks a paintbrush behind his ear. Thinks its about time he starts painting the outside world he paid Liam to bring him to.

The streets are empty, fruit stands and meat markets getting ready for the day of sales. Zayn passes by them, doesn’t look at the daily specials, and goes towards the small restaurants, the tiny cafes with strange looking people coming in and out of them.

He finds a ledge to sit on, wipes the dirt off it and sets up his work space, squeezes out paint into his pallet and wrinkles his nose when he tries to think what color blue the shatter bottle pieces on the walls of the building is.

He doesn’t like how it looks, doesn’t like the faint colors or the way they look too watery. The lines waver when Zayn wants strong lines, rigid arcs and angles of the small buildings.

He has his paintbrush poised over his painting to start brushing bright yellow paint over it when there’s a hand on his shoulder, the small cry of _no!_

He turns around and sees big green eyes, nose scattered in freckles, “what are you doing!” she asks and her voice is thick with a French accent, voice broken over the words she can’t say just yet.

Zayn looks at her, the way her eyebrows knit together, her mouth dipped into a displeased line.

“It’s not good,” Zayn says, takes time to admit that the girl is beautiful, worth some of his paint.

“It’s plenty good,” the girl says, nods and reaches into the pocket of her jeans, “how much for it?”

Zayn freezes at the question, his mind going wild with the possibility of answers. He takes another look at the weak lines and colors and sighs, “let me paint you and you can have it for free.”

The girl gives him a funny look before she grins and shakes her head, “add me to the painting and I’ll give you all I have here,” she waves the wad of money around and Zayn feels his eyes widen at that.

It’s a hard deal to pass up.

Most of his day ends up with Zayn starting over, letting the girl pose in front of the small cafe, bashful and excited, eyes shining bright under the sun.

In the end he gets a wad of money pressed to his chest and some change, excited hands grabbing at the small canvas and chatter about how _Jade is gonna love this._

Zayn is still half dazed, his jeans’ pocket feeling unbearably heavy with the neatly folded bills and jingle of coins. He slings his canvas bag over his shoulder and lowers his eyes to watch the way his feet kick up dust into the air.

He ends up bumping into Louis, who immediately grabs onto his wrist and pulls him towards the market with a huffy sounding _Zayn!_

Zayn lets himself be pulled along, squeezes his eyes shut when he feels small tendrils of static where Louis’ fingertips dig into the thin skin of his wrist. He hopes Louis doesn’t notice it, doesn’t notice how he goes limp and just lets himself get dragged around.

“We need more food,” Louis says loudly, goes to a vegetable stand and starts picking up tomatoes, “how much?” he asks to the owner, smile already switched on from annoyed to charming.

-

There’s a small street party that evening, there’s little fairy lights lit and strung from building to building, smells of delicious food wafting through the chilly night. Louis heaves all they bought in the afternoon, refuses Zayn’s help, looks at him challenging and marches to the entrance, where he gives the produce to an elderly lady, who smiles wide at him and Zayn and lets them in.

Zayn watches for a bit, how their food gets used in most of the dishes being cooked in big pots over scorching fires.

Him and Louis end up around a small fire at the edge of the party, there’s food roasting over it, meat and corn and Zayn watches the way Louis reaches for a corn on the cob, the way he shuffles it from hand to hand as if not to burn himself.

Zayn smiles back, and to his surprise, Louis grins back at him, small and tentative, but there.

“This is fun,” he says, nods towards where there’s a crowd gathered around small children dancing and prancing about to some soft music.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, pokes his finger into the piece of chicken on his stick, “thanks for bringing me with you.”

Louis looks at him, funny and unsure and then softly, “thanks for sticking around, mate.”

Zayn gives him wide eyes, a slight raise of his eyebrows. He’s about to say how he really couldn’t resist a chance of spending days with someone so beautiful, so _awe inspiring_ , but then a little boy runs to them, presents Louis’ with a guitar and Zayn can feel the way the crowd has turned to look at them, watch the way Louis declines at first but then gets lured with the boy’s sad eyes.

Zayn feels something odd in his chest when he sees the crowd swallow Louis up, and then a strain over his chest when he hears the soft notes of the guitar and the sweet raw honest voice of Louis, urging the children to play, luring Zayn into falling just a bit more in love with him.

Zayn lowers his eyes to the crackling fire and tries to figure out when falling in love even happened.

-

The sky is dark gray, clouds heavily rolling and curling into each other. Louis smiles over his shoulder from where he’s steering the moped, Zayn’s hands tight over his waist, holding on over the bumpy road.

They have to leave the moped at the side of the row, hidden behind some tall grass and chained up.

Louis tells him they’re going into the field, so Zayn can have something else to draw but the town and the people in it.

Zayn smiles at that, thinks it’s silly when he already has Louis to draw instead. But he doesn’t say a word of that, instead presses his hand to Louis’ chest, can feel the way it picks up speed under the layers of skin, pushing as if to get into Zayn’s hand.

“Thanks,” he says softly.

They go through tall grass and broken sticks, waddle through wet dirt before Louis declares they’re in the middle of the field. He lets Zayn set up his station in favor of dragging a log towards where they’re situated.

“Better be good,” Louis says, “if I’m gonna end up with blisters in my bum for it.”

Zayn’s fingers start to shake when he hears that, thinks that maybe Louis has given him permission to draw him but Louis shakes his head and Zayn knows he’s sadly mistaken.

“Don’t draw me, Zayn. Not when you have the whole world to draw instead.”

Honestly, Zayn fails to see the difference.

Zayn feels oddly like crying when he starts to paint the soft green of the grass, the faded tips of yellow, the horrible contrasting gray line of the sky.

He just wants to paint Louis, and he has no idea why that’s so much to ask for.

He thinks the earth pities him, when the first drop hits his canvas dead center, melts the paint away into a murky brown.

It’s the only warning he gets before it starts to pound against them, harsh against the already wet dirt and muddling his painting into a blob.

He lets out a sob of relief, a choked laugh and then a sound of surprise when Louis shoots up and kisses him on his cheek, over where the rain runs down his face like fake tears.

Zayn jerks into it, chin bumping into Louis' cheek before his mouth finds Louis' lips. Slotting their lips together, unsure and shy. Louis goes stiff for a while, palms flat over Zayn's chest. 

It's sweet, a slow kiss that's only a slide of lips, slow and uncertain as Zayn keeps taking kisses from Louis. Pulling back but unable to stop himself from going for another and another. Louis' eyes have gone wide, mouth parted in quiet surprise. His mouth is soft and warm and Zayn thinks he can taste the right pink for it, _almost._

Louis closes his eyes, leans in towards Zayn. The rain is falling down hard on them, curling the long hairs at the bottom of Louis' skull, catching over the lines of cheekbones, dripping down his neck. 

Zayn's thumb catches the rain going down the path of the side of Louis' neck, down his pulse. He can feel the way his clothes are sticking to him, the unpleasant way his jeans feel heavy now. 

Louis pulls back quickly, opens his eyes and looks startled, disoriented. He bites his bottom lip, looking at Zayn for a split second before his hands go to grab all of Zayn’s things and then starts running, throwing a grin over his shoulder and Zayn thinks it’s fitting.

Louis running away with all Zayn has and is, his love and his sanity

-

It’s the light drizzle that wakes him up. 

Zayn’s mouth tastes acrid, he wrinkles his nose against it. 

Louis isn’t in their room, Zayn knows that he must have gone to the fountain, deemed the light mist falling not a threat. 

He walks over to his canvas bag, pulls out the bible from between his paintings and goes to find Louis. 

Zayn’s heart does a funny thing when he spots Louis, smiling and talking animatedly to a skinnier boy, blond haired and blue eyed. 

His stomach lurches when Louis laughs, braying and overly amused. He’s never even _considered_ how Louis would look _happy_ , _smiling_ and _laughing_. It’s entirely too much, it makes Zayn’s head hurt. 

He steps forward, makes enough of a movement to attract Louis’ gaze away from the boy and onto Zayn. 

“Hi,” Zayn says, meek and cautionary. 

Louis’ smile leaves his lips for a second, before he turns to look back at the blond boy. 

“Niall, this is Zayn,” Louis says, “him and I are splitting the pay at the motel.”

Niall nods, sticks his hand out, “nice to meet you. Was just passing by when I remember Lou was staying here for a bit, decided to visit. Be a good friend and what not.”

Zayn nods, offers a smile, “cool.”

He wants to know absolutely nothing about Niall. 

-

Niall stays with them in their cramped room, he tangles himself easily with Louis and Zayn pretends to be asleep when Louis’ chin dips up, mouth searching, lips slotting into Niall’s. 

Zayn's stomach clenches painfully, he remembers the taste of Louis the other day. The warm summer rain, the citrus of stolen tangerines. He wonders if he tastes the same to Niall, wonders if Louis gives his kisses away just like that. 

His lips miss the ghostly press of Louis, it's fucked him up. Made him crave the slide of Louis' thin lips, the roughness of his stubble. 

“I’m leaving tomorrow Lou,” Niall says, “be back in a week or two give or take.”

Zayn shifts, squints his eyes in a fake sleep and sees the way Louis’ fingers curl next to Niall’s ears. 

“Lemme go with you,” Louis whispers, his mouth still too close to Niall's still making Zayn's stomach lurch violently.  And even Zayn can see the way Niall’s spine goes stiff at that. 

“Of course, Louis,” Niall says softly, “me over Zayn, then?”

There’s crickets chirping, the white noise of too late at night. 

“For now,” Louis says. 

-

Niall is gone the next morning but Louis is still there. Curled over where Niall must’ve been holding on to him. 

Zayn hates the way relief crashes against his skin. He takes a deep breath, finds himself smiling hopeful at the ceiling.

He lets Louis sleep in without giving in to the urge of drawing him, he feels generous and he wants Louis to have reasons to stay, reasons not to figure out that Zayn has been drawing him non stop, unable to think about anything but Louis' mouth, the crooked quirk of it, the overly bright shine of his blue blue eyes, skin gone pale with the constant stay of clouds but still so golden and radiant. He wants Louis to stay, to let Zayn have all of that, give him the chance to get Louis down on his canvases and skin. 

Zayn's never been rich in things he has wanted, not money, fame, recognition. Not talent. Zayn's only ever been rich in things he has craved. Beauty and inspiration. Love and Louis.

Louis doesn’t mention Niall all day, Zayn knows he wouldn’t, knows Louis doesn’t know that Zayn knows. His heart feels oddly empty when he remembers them, the words, _me over Zayn, then?_

It’s a feeling that turns nasty and sour quickly, rises like vile from his belly and has him wanting to hit Niall, wanting to hit Louis.

Louis sends him looks, quiet and fluttering, wavering, and they calm him down, make him want to kiss him instead, taste him and see if he can paint the taste with the colors he’s valued more than his life. 

-

Louis keeps his distance after that, as much as their small room and the small town allows. It’s not enough for Zayn’s heart’s liking but Louis seems satisfied with it, smiles at Zayn when he wakes up and makes sure to keep quiet, as if Zayn is _actually_ reading the word of god, as if Zayn isn’t drawing the lines of his calves, the curves of his strong thighs.

Today the line of Louis’ long neck goes through another passage that Zayn finds fitting.

_Inner Beauty is what God seeks_

He wonders if that’s what Louis thinks Zayn is doing, being silent in prayer in the hopes of finding something beautiful inside and out. He wonders when Louis turned into something of a religion. The way he never fails to open the bible and draw him, never fails to find passages all about Louis. The way all he seems to be doing lately is trying to find every thing that makes Louis heavenly.

His head starts to hurt when he thinks about it too much, he bites his lip and Louis asks if he’s _ok_ , in a soft voice, almost concerned. Zayn nods when he means to say _no, i'm not and it’s all your fault._

His days become something of a routine, a routine he enjoys more than the ones he had a home. He wakes up and draws Louis, in all angles of asleep, with all the tattoos he bares, all the faces he presents Zayn.

Zayn swears to himself he can stop anytime he wants, can pick up his paint and his brushes, his pencil and draw anything he wants.

But the lines of the tree next to their window turns into the lines of Louis’ sides, and the color of the early morning sky turns into the color of Louis’ warm eyes. The pink of the budding flowers turn into the flush of Louis’ cheeks, the quirk of his mouth.

It goes on until Louis doesn’t even have to be there for him to be drawn, Zayn’s hands know nothing but Louis and his planes, Louis and his minute details, Louis and his colors.

Zayn knows it should bother him, bother him that all his hands’ efforts can turn out is Louis, the boy from the street that he’s spent weeks with. But it doesn’t one bit, Zayn enjoys it more than anything, likes the way it makes his belly feel hot and his skin feel tight. He knows it maybe makes him mad, but he likes it, he likes Louis.

Even if Louis doesn’t like him back, even if Louis likes Niall better. 

Louis walks into their room that night. A confused look on his face. Nose wrinkle in thought. He throws Zayn a look. Challenging with his jaw clenched. It’s all he does before he heads to the bathroom. The creaky door slamming. Zayn goes over the expression on Louis face. The defined line of his jaw. He tries to make some sense of it all. But like everything about Louis, he ends up all in knots. 

-

Seven sketches of Louis happen before Zayn’s eyes. He’s just starting to get the feel of Louis’ jaw, the stubble running along it. 

He’s pleased with himself, pleased with the lines of Louis he keeps perfecting. 

He’s managed to grow a false sense of contentment over the slow days. He sets out to paint other things, he feels like that’s all he’s been doing, losing a power struggle against Louis and what he really wants to draw. Lately those two things have been blurring together so Zayn lets it be. 

He snaps the bible close to his chest when Louis’ shadow goes over him, bites down a sound surprise and lets Louis look at him. Lets him look at him how Zayn has been looking at Louis for days. He doesn’t urge him on, knows how volatile Louis’ character is. He takes small breaths to calm himself, his mind going over Louis and Niall’s conversation, maybe this is Louis’ good bye. 

“Can you do something for me?” Louis asks, fingers tapping nervously along his thigh. 

Zayn nods, “yeah, anything, Louis,” he winces at the sincerity of his words. 

Louis looks thoughtful, “you’ve got ink, right?” 

Zayn nods along, already reaching for his pens, “do you wanna borrow one?” he asks, looks at Louis confused as he takes his bible, his fingers gripping at all the studies of Louis Zayn has done, all of them with those holy words holding them together, all of them in Louis’ grasp. 

Zayn’s insides twist in nervousness, an unpleasant feeling until Louis places it on the night stand, crawling up the bed. 

It does no good to Zayn’s thoughts, makes him think dirty things, think of Louis all open for him, ready for the taking, to be painted, raw and open just for Zayn’s eyes to see. Cheeks bright with color, blue eyes _gone_. 

He settles back to the present when he feels Louis’ arm over his lap, wrist presented to him. 

“Draw something for me,” Louis says. 

Zayn stares at him, mouth slacked. Louis doesn’t move, starts to wiggle his fingers around. 

It’s _playful_ , Zayn realizes with awe, it’s a part of Louis he has never seen and he’s not sure if his heart can take it. It swells up and pounds against his rib age when he wraps his fingers over Louis’ skinny wrist. 

He wants to ask what. _What’s going on? What is he supposed to be drawing?  What does Louis want?_

But his mouth is having a difficult time doing anything but to gape at Louis. 

His hand shakes as he in uncaps his pen, heavy and dragging his hand to Louis’ skin. 

He scratches little lines of ink all around his wrist. Half crescents that he wishes his fingernails could be the reason of instead of the dark ink. 

Louis talks to him, quiet and almost trance-like. 

He has four sisters. His dad left them. He’s 21 years old. 

His favorite color is blue. Niall has known him for most of his life. He thinks Zayn is an ok bloke. 

Zayn lets him talk, he thinks maybe Louis has forgotten Zayn is there. So he keeps his head down and draws a delicate rope of wannabe fingernail pressings. 

Louis doesn’t ask him about himself. Instead he leans forward. His hand going over Zayn’s vibrating heart, fingers curling over the thin cloth of his shirt. 

Zayn stops the delicate lines he’s been etching on Louis’ skin, lets go of his wrist and tenses when he feels fingers curling over his chin, pulling him upwards, eyes meeting Louis’ half lidded ones. 

He tries taking a deep breath, but Louis’ mouth presses over his, hesitating before he kisses him, steals the deep breath Zayn had taken. 

Louis pulls him closer, until their chest are pressed together, legs awkwardly bent with each others, Louis trying to pull him closer, trying to feel the way Zayn’s blood rushes through his veins.

It’s slick, searing hot when Louis’ tongue swipes over his bottom lip and coaxes Zayn’s mouth open. 

His tongue curls over Zayn’s, Louis sucks hard on his tongue and Zayn’s legs go weak, his whole body shivers, mouth letting go of a muffled groan. His hands go to Louis’ thighs and Louis kisses him harder, pressing, almost bruising. Louis’ teeth sink into his bottom lip, dragging it on a painful pull that Zayn enjoys too much, has his hands scrambling to dig his fingernails to Louis’ strong thighs. He lurches forward and knocks Louis down, his back hitting the bed, hands going to circle around Zayn’s neck, pulling him down, keeping him pressed to Louis’ mouth. 

His jaw starts to ache after a while, the wet slide of their lips is too pleasant to let go, Zayn presses harder against Louis, keeps him pressed to the thin mattress, his hands holding on to his waist as Louis’ palms dig into the curve of his back. 

It’s getting sloppy with how desperate Zayn is, he can’t bother with finesse when he’s got Louis under him, when he can slide his hands up the curves of Louis’ sides, feel the lines and planes of him pressed against his chest. 

Louis arches up, licks furiously into Zayn’s mouth and whines, hips stuttering a bit in the air, barely connecting with Zayn’s. 

It makes Zayn’s spine stiffen, heart shooting up in its pace. 

Louis keeps kissing him, feverishly and deep, like he’s trying to kiss away the taste of Zayn. His hips rutting up in small increments, barely rubbing his hard on against Zayn’s. 

Zayn allows himself to enjoy it for a while, the way Louis kisses him hard and needy, tongue persistent in his slacked mouth, the minute movements of his hips. Then it gets to feel like too much. And his hands go up down to Louis’ hips, fingers curling over the jut of the bone there and he presses them down, flushed to the mattress as he pulls back, takes his mouth back from Louis, puts the smallest of spaces between their bodies. 

Louis whines, eyes shutting close for a second before he looks up at Zayn. His cheeks high with color, spreading down his neck, a pretty flush that Zayn wants to jot down and paint Louis in. 

His eyes have gone hazy, a violent blue, almost too bright in the dimness of the room. Louis blinks up at him, his mouth pretty and swollen, bruised red and shiny with spit, formed into a frown. 

“Zayn,” he says, breathy and demanding. 

Zayn hesitates, eyes pinching into a frown before he opens his mouth. He closes it when he has no idea what to say, opens it again when he feels the words bubbling in his chest. 

This isn't like the kiss at the field, its nothing close to the sweetness, the shyness and softness of the Louis that he got to kiss under the rain. He's shameless now, open and breathing hard and Zayn has no idea how to deal with it. Deal with the way his skin is blazing up, the way his skin itches for Louis to keep touching him, clinging to home. 

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he says. 

Louis looks up at him, eyes gone wide and mouth parted a bit. 

“We were kissing,” says Louis almost fiercely, challenging. His chest puffs up for a second and Zayn can see when the fight drains out of Louis, washes over him like the warm water of the ocean’s waves. His eyes go unsure and his cheeks go hectic pink, he swallows, his throat moves with it, body trying to cover itself, curl away from Zayn. He lowers his eyes, takes his hands back from where they’re touching Zayn, he’s gone small into himself and Zayn wants to hit himself for making Louis shrivel up.

“Ok,” he says, hands going for Louis’ wrists, pulling him apart, trying to open him up again, Louis fights him on that, his muscles strain with it and his eyes have gone determined again, but Zayn leans forward, his mouth feels dry and his heart is leaping out of him, kisses Louis at the line of his jaw, a gentle kiss, that has Louis going soft, letting Zayn spread him open.

He’s panicking on the inside, his insides feel all shimmery and his heart _hurts_ , a burning ache that feels dangerous, but he _tries_ to look _ok_ , for Louis, so Louis lets him kiss him again and finally lets him taste enough to get the color of his mouth just right. 

His mouth slots wetly with Louis’, hot and searing when Louis finally tilts his head for Zayn to angle it just right.

Zayn kisses him like he’s trying to convince him, convince Louis that he’s beautiful and Zayn wants to kiss him now, then and later.

He loses track of time, his mind fuzzy with the way Louis licks against his mouth, how small and warm he feels under him. His body slumps down, hips clumsy as they align to Louis’, his sharp hipbones flush to Louis’ full ones, snapping together for the smallest of fractions.

Louis arches up, bumps Zayn up with the jerk of his hips, chasing after Zayn’s.

Zayn whimpers, unsure of what to do, where to put his hands down, what Louis wants, or what he wants.

"Louis," he whines and lets him rut against him, hip bones colliding almost painfully. 

"C'mon," Louis whispers, _c'mon c'mon c'mon_ he pants, his hands going to his own jeans, popping the button and sticking his hand inside. 

Zayn lifts his hips enough to allow Louis the movement, and selfishly, allows himself the show of watching Louis jerk himself. 

His hand can't move much with his jeans and boxers in the way, Zayn watches with wide eyes at the movement of the cloth over Louis' hand. His face has gone red and his chest heaves up and down. 

Zayn loses it, his eyes cloud over and his hands are moving before his mind catches up with him,

His hand goes down, gripping the waistband of Louis' half on jeans, dragging them down his thighs, over his knees. 

Zayn licks his lips, looks at the way the head of Louis' dick presses against his boxers, tenting them over a wet spot. 

He bites the inside of his cheek, lifts his eyes to throw Louis a gaze, questioning and pleading. 

Louis lifts his hips, barely anything but just enough for Zayn to tug his boxers down, down the curve of his bum, until the front goes down Louis' dick, dragging the waistline of it over the hardness of it. 

Louis hisses, but his hips cant up, urging Zayn forward. 

He rushes to get his hand over Louis, wrapping his fingers around him, pumping up half the length of him. He has no idea if this is a one time thing, but Zayn knows he wants to remember this, wants to make it a good memory for himself, for Louis. 

Louis takes in a deep breath, biting his lip when Zayn's thumb runs over the slit, collecting the wetness beading over it and then pushing it down the curve of his dick. The slide of it is slick over him, an easy gliding motion. Louis sucks in his lower lip over the feeling of Zayn's soft hands, his cheeks coloring at the loud spank of Zayn wanking him hard, making his knees go up the bed, toes curling at the electric pull over his belly, the itch of his palms, the tightness over his skin. 

Zayn's hand stops midway, a painful vice grip over Louis' hot dick. Louis lets his eyes fall open, can't remember when he closed them, he gives Zayn a look, confused and asking. Zayn doesn't say a word, sliding his hand up, enough to make Louis shudder at the delicate stroke. 

Zayn watches him, makes note of all the faces Louis' makes, expressions he's only ever dreamed of seeing. He wants to engrave them in his mind, have them burned so deep that he can draw them with his eyes close. He wants to get a pencil and catalog them, keep them filed under things that make Louis gorgeous, beautiful, breathtaking.

Zayn works his fist over Louis slowly, twisting up, thumb pressing over the head, the vein on the underside. 

Louis keeps making little choked off noises, moans and whimpers that die off in his throat. Zayn frowns at that, stops moving his fist again, giving Louis enough time to catch his breath, his hips jumping up to catch some friction from Zayn's fist. 

"Louis," he says, drops his hand and shuffles down, rustling the blanket under them, making Louis lift up on his elbows to follow Zayn's movements. 

"Zayn," Louis says back, head tilting, eyes big and wondering. 

"I'm gonna," Zayn takes a deep breath, lips bumping against the head of Louis' dick, smearing precome all over his mouth, and when Louis' hips spasm from it, across Zayn's cheek. 

"I'm gonna suck you off," he finishes, his eyes focused on Louis cock, hands gripping at the base, "never done it before though," he confesses, "but I really want to now."

Louis nods, fast and jerky, his hips unable to stay still, lurching up to keep bumping his dick against Zayn's mouth. 

"Please," Louis says, voice going low. 

Zayn opens his mouth, guides Louis toward him with the hand on the base of it, pressing the underside of his tongue to the slit, wrapping his tongue over the head, giving it little licks. 

" _Yes_ ," Louis groans, tries to press up to Zayn's mouth when his lips wrap over the tip, sucking gently, before Zayn braves to go down a bit more. 

 Zayn gags on it, eyebrows knitting into a frown, eyes tearing up when he pulls off, takes a deep breath and looks at Louis. 

"It's...uh... _difficult_ ," he admits, leaning down to run his tongue up the length, hand chasing the movement with an upper stroke. 

Louis doesn't get to respond, his little words of encouragement choked off when Zayn takes him back into his mouth, tongue wrapping around him, cheeks hollowing in at Zayn sucking at him. 

"Oh god," Louis whimpers, arms going weak as he slumps back down, eyes going half shut over the ceiling, feet planting of the mattress. He can't control his hips, they keep pressing more and more into Zayn. There's little choking sounds, gagging but Zayn keeps pulling off and running his spit all over Louis' dick when he does it, and it feels _good_. 

Louis braves a look when Zayn's mouth is back on him, he freezes when Zayn's honey eyes look right back at him, under the thick curve of his lashes, his cheek pushing up with the head of Louis' dick pressing on the inside. His hand goes to Zayn's hair, grips at it and hesitantly holds him in place, his hips moving slowly, almost shyly, unsure. 

And Zayn keeps looking at him, eyes clouded, hands move to press his fingers to Louis' thighs. The skin there is soft over the hard muscle underneath. Zayn presses his fingernails into it, tries to smile over his mouth full, over finally being able to touch Louis like he wants. 

Louis fucks shallowly into his mouth, wet noises that ring too loud in their small motel room. It feels weird, the way Louis' dick is hot and heavy over his tongue, stretching his jaw with an ache.

“Zayn,” Louis gasps, his hips jumping up from the bed, pressing up and grinding into Zayn's mouth. His fingers go to the base of Zayn's skull, fingernails scraping the skin there, “Zayn,” he says again, back arching of the bed, mouth going slack and Zayn flinches when he feels the first hit of Louis' come, a hot pulse that rushes down his throat.

He can't pull back much, Louis keeps his hold on his head tight, his fingernails digging in painfully when Louis releases into his mouth. He's not sure how long he stays with Louis' dick in his mouth, but eventually his hand goes soft and his fingers grip at his hair gentler, urging Zayn up.

Louis has a lazy smile on, and Zayn smiles sadly at him, wipes his mouth, blinking owlishly.  He smiles at how beautiful it looks, how beautiful Louis looks, cheeks still colored ruby red, his mouth a lazy satisfied line, hair in his face, eyes shining bright.

“It was good,” Louis says, he starts to turn, flop on his belly, but Zayn can't let him, Zayn has to take all he can now, before Louis leaves, before Louis shuts him out again. He scrambles up Louis, placing a hand on his shoulder, anchoring him on his back.

He wants to say _no don't hide, don't go_ but his mouth betrays him, says, “You're so beautiful.”  
Louis looks up at him, mouth opened from where he's trying to catch his breath, eyes so _so_ bright and blue, they hurt to look at, it hurts Zayn that he has yet not colored them for himself.

“Zayn,” Louis sighs, he looks sad and pitying, like Zayn's a kid that just doesn't understand that he can't do as he pleases.

“Louis,” Zayn says back, his hands sliding down Louis' chest, under his shirt, palms skimming over the curve of his stomach, the flat planes of his chest, rucking the worn out material of his shirt up, “so pretty.”

Louis' eyes never leave his, he looks lost and intense, lets Zayn's hands slide under the hard muscles of his back, lift him up to get his shirt over his head. He's deadly quiet and it should be scaring Zayn, but the sad reality is that he'll take Louis anyway that he can.

He throws the shirt off the bed, looks at Louis under him, naked and soft in places that Zayn hadn't expected but finds charming, attractive and appealing.

The room is quiet, no longer filled with the wet noises of Zayn's mouth or hands, or Louis' pleas and groans.

He leans over him, lowers himself over just a bit more over Louis, who hisses when Zayn's jeans catch his naked crotch.

“Watch it,” he snaps and Zayn blinks at the way it's the Louis from a while ago, before he had begged Zayn to kiss him, get him off.

“Sorry,” he mumbles after a while, his nose nudging along his jaw, teeth barely catching at the skin, “didn't mean to hurt you.”

Louis shrugs under him, his hands on the bed, eyes almost defiant when Zayn places a kiss under his jaw, leads a trail of them down his neck, over his adam's apple. He bites at it when he catches it bobbing, Louis swallows at the sensation, the way Zayn's teeth sink playfully in, his tongue lapping away any hurt.

"Just... _wow_ ," Zayn swallows, mouth pressing over the dimples of Louis' collarbones, licking over the _78_ , tracing out _it is what it is_.  Louis' chest lifts to him, searching for his mouth.  

"So pretty, I want to touch you everywhere," Zayn sighs, fingers going down Louis' chest, fingers flicking over his left nipple, thumb pressing down when he feels how it goes hard.

 Louis makes a small sound, breathy and too quiet.

He ducks down quick, pressing a quick kiss to Louis' chin, lips dragging down his neck, towards his chest. His tongue darts out, flicking over Louis' right nipple, pressing down on it, mouth going around it in an open mouthed kiss.  Louis' chest bends towards him, the hands on the bed twisting the covers up, face gone flushed again.  

"Zayn," he says again, his voice gone breathy and uneven, his hand goes up behind Zayn's head, fingers going through the shorn hair at the back, his palm presses flat against the round of Zayn'a skull, pressing his hot mouth to his chest, keeping Zayn on his nipple.  

Zayn digs his teeth around the skin, nibbles at it, tugs at the nub of it as much as Louis' hand allows.  Louis keeps Zayn's mouth on him until Zayn's hot tongue and warm breath get to be too much. His persistent teeth bordering on painful. Making him feel raw and on fire, itchy at the over worked nerves.

 "Too much," he says when he tugs Zayn up by his hair, knocking Zayn's fingers from his chest.  

Zayn thinks it's not enough. His mouth feels used, from Louis' dick, his bossiness. His jaw aches and his mouth feels warm with the ghost reminder of the warm beating of Louis' heart.  Louis pulls him up for a kiss and Zayn allows himself the experience. Remembers liking Louis' kisses when this started. He takes Louis' mouth eagerly, teeth clanking together, catching Louis' bottom lip, earning another hiss from him.  

"Too much," he repeats but Zayn can't help it, he's excited, vibrating out of his clothes, a naked Louis under him, open for him to memorize and draw as best as he can. He wants to give Louis all he deserves, all his attention and admiration, pour his love out to him, make him feel as pretty as he looks to Zayn.

His mouth hesitates over Louis' lips, hovering in a huff of warmth breath before his lips, eyes feeling heavy looking at Louis, his face flushes and Louis' eyes flick away in embarrassment.

Zayn presses a quick kiss against Louis' mouth, a shy peck before his mouth slides to the curve of his shoulder, mouthing at the golden skin, teeth etching the lightest marks of his teeth to the the swell of his shoulder, before his mouth changes its mind, his lips finding themselves under Louis' jaw, skimming over the column of his neck, mouth pursing into fleeting kisses, down the Louis' sternum, to his belly, his fingers scrapping his nails down the lines of Louis' waist and hips, leaving marks for _Niall_ to see, the _world_ to see.

He finds fascination on the jut of Louis' hips, his skin pulled tight over the bone, delicate looking. Zayn takes the contours and lines of it, of all the parts his mouth is mapping over, tasting the colors he knows he has memorized for the rest of his life.

“Zayn,” Louis says, he sounds dazed, out of focused, “your clothes.”

Zayn looks up at him, before he pulls back and flips his shirt off, throws it to the floor and pushes his jeans down, pants going with them, fumbling to get them off his ankles and back to Louis.

“Oh god,” Louis chokes off, pushing Zayn back and crossing his hands over his chest, eyes lowered, legs curling in, “you're so gorgeous.”

Zayn can feel the way his eyes go wide, the way his hands already go out to uncurl Louis, let him see all of his lines, angles and planes, see how beautiful he is.

“Louis,” he says, mouth slotting back into Louis' molding hot words over the trembling lips, “you're so much more beautiful, you're all I can think about, you're all I want, so so so beautiful, Louis, please.”

Louis shifts under him, and he can feel the painful clash of hips, the flash of pleasure shoot through his belly when they rub together, bare and so hard, Louis gone so hard from Zayn's mouth again.

Louis rocks up to him, hands going to the back of Zayn, pressing flat over the smooth muscles there, keeping Zayn steady against him. Louis' lips mouth wetly at Zayn's neck, feverish and relentless, hands holding on to Zayn's hips,

Zayn can't help but stare, mouth dropped open as Louis rocks against him, skin gone sticky against his own, fusing together, getting Louis closer to him. He's so painfully hard, ready to let go, his eyes lock with Louis', questioning and looking for what Louis wants, what he needs.

The hands on his hips leave him, Louis takes a deep breath, letting it go, the strands of hair sticking over his eyes swaying gently with it.

The sun is setting over the clouds, breaking feebly over them, slanting over the room in glowing orange, casting shadows over them, bouncing over Louis' golden skin, making him look soft and ethereal.

Zayn's hands itch for his pencil, itch for his paints and get the glow of Louis on canvas. But all those thoughts leave him when Louis' small hands find themselves between them, fingers wrapping over Zayn, spreading his own legs and guiding the blunt head of Zayn's dick to his hole.

Zayn swallows, bucks forward, arms going weak, head swimming when Louis pulls his head up, mouth going for his ear.

“All of me, you said,” Louis whispers and Zayn nods frantically, hands going to knock Louis' hands away from him, cheeks flushing a darker pink.

“How,” he says and Louis takes his hands to his face, his hair pushed back, mouth taking a deep breath.

“There's like stuff in the bathroom?” Louis asks and Zayn looks at the way his sharp eyes peek through the slots of his fingers before he gets off Louis, bed creaking with his movement.

The bathroom is dark and he fumbles with the light switch before he opens the cabinet under the sink, his hands knocking over bottles of soap until he finds a small bottle of clear oil.

The sun is getting dimmer, softer shadows cloaking over Louis, the slots of yellow over the swell of his hips and hollow of his belly, eyes bright under the feeble sunlight.

Louis looks up at him, face set into a determined look, chest puffing up before he raises his hands up, calling for Zayn to come back, Zayn to cover him over again. Zayn walks quickly to him, dropping the small bottle into the bed, hands going for Louis' face, fingers trailing over his cheekbone, the straight line of his nose, the jut of his jaw.

“You're so breathtaking,” he says quietly, “so amazing.”

Louis shrinks over his words, eyes closing, lashes fluttering.

It's the easiest thing Zayn has done in ages, his mind drifts away from him, fingers pushing into Louis, marveling at the way he pushes back, mouth pressed tightly together to keep from being so loud. But even the sounds he makes are so beautiful, Zayn commits them to memory, tries to match them with the colors he thinks they would be, the way how they could be the hectic pink of Louis' cheeks, the golden color of his thighs, the brash white of the tight hold his knuckles have over the bed sheets.

Louis is so so hot when he finally enters him, perfect and soft under him, nails leaving little patterns over his back as Zayn slides in and out of him, breath puffing warmly over Zayn's shoulder, legs wrapped tightly around Zayn.

Louis presses close, leaving only enough space for Zayn's pace to change into a slow grind, barely enough room for him to pull out enough, but Louis keens and whines into his shoulder, teeth biting down hard, holding on for dear life when Zayn starts whispering words against Louis' cheek.

_Beautiful, perfect, pretty, magnificent, worthy._

Louis' tearing up when he starts to feel the low burn in his belly, his throat all choked up when he loosens his hold on Zayn, letting him dick into him at a better angle, make his thrust more powerful.

Zayn looks down at him when he hears the first sob, tiny and broken and Louis comes when Zayn's fingers leave his hips and his thumb wipes away the first tear trailing down his cheek.

-

The night is light over them, constellations fading away from the lavender sky, Louis wrapped around the thin sheet, hair all over the place, eyelids too heavy with sleep.

“Just for now,” Louis says slowly when Zayn first had woken him up, “you can paint me now.”

Zayn snaps out of the dull sleep static when he hears that, his eyes snap open and he reaches blindly for the bible dissecting Louis into lines and angles and shapes.

He doesn't bother to ask if he's sure, he doesn't want Louis to take his words back, he bites his tongue and tries to keep himself from dancing like an idiot at the invitation.

Louis looks so sad, so vulnerable, Zayn tries to capture all of that in the colors he uses, the strokes of his paintbrush, the shakiness of his hand when Louis shifts and the line of his shoulder peeks out from the sheet.

He clears his throat, tries to sound confident when he says, “can you take out the bed sheet, please?”

Louis is still beautiful to him, with the heavy ink etched on his skin, the purpling blotches all over his neck, his chest, his belly, the angry red lines of is fingernails trying to claim his hips and thighs as Zayn's territory.

He's so devastatingly gorgeous, Zayn is nearly buzzing at the chance at a proper go to immortalized Louis, paint him, color him in and hang him up in his shitty little flat, tattoo his touches, the feeling of Louis on his skin forever, burn the image of Louis behind his eyelids.

Louis stays quiet and still the whole time through, with the sun rising up, the shadows walking over his body, the sun melting golden against his skin, until Zayn has spend hours and hours of the day looking at Louis, etching him on the old canvas, filling his fill with a look at Louis' eyes, his hair, his skin, the curves of his body.

Zayn can't resist for long, dropping his paintbrush and forgetting the need to draw Louis over his need to touch him, he stands up carefully, almost like he's afraid Louis is going to get frightened if he moves too quick, snap him away from the lull that Louis has set himself into, letting himself be beautiful for Zayn.

His hands take their time mapping all of Louis out, trying to figure out the fascination Zayn's mouth has with Louis' body. He knocks Louis down, hurling him on the thin pillows. His thumb rubs cadmium yellow over the concave lines of Louis' hips, rubbing the shimmer gray of graphite over his neck, pressing the smell of paint into Louis' skin.

Zayn takes great pleasure in Louis body, more so than he has ever in painting.

-

The canvas stays half finished, faded lines softly depicting Louis where the color stops, his lashes are soft curved lines, reaching for the sunshine in the portrait.

Zayn wakes up warm and sweaty, cheeks already pinking with the hotness of the air. He looks at the painting of Louis, looks at the way the guitar case is gone and lets himself close his eyes before the panic sinks in.

He runs out with his clothes on crooked, his breath tasting awful with the morning, the feeling of Louis gone. He doesn't have time for shoes, feels the dirt and rocks sink under his feet, the hot concrete sidewalk burning under him. He makes nothing of it, his lungs burn with the need for air, his mind running wild with places Louis can be.

He's not in the fountain, he's not at the markets, at the beach. He gets a ride to the fields where Louis first kissed him but they're empty and the clouds are clouding over him, threatening to spill over the town and cry with him.

He walks back to town, head bowed and hopes bashed, heart aching for another chance, insides wanting out of his body.

Zayn's given up, he can feel cuts under his feet, can feel the way his mind can't think of a single reason why Louis would go, leave Zayn alone with an undone canvas, leave him craving his lines and colors and taste.

“Louis, hurry up!” he hears when he rounds the corner to the motel, the same sunny Irish tilt, and it does nothing to keep his heart from breaking, makes it crumble faster and his knees wobble.

“In a minute, Niall,” Louis murmurs and Zayn stops right in front of him, head down and Louis unable to look him in the eye.

The sun is out, so bright Zayn has to squint to keep looking at Louis, but there’s raindrops hitting the top of his head and catching at Louis’ eyelashes, glinting under the hard rays of the sun. And it’s beautiful and Louis is golden and glowing with the soft fuzziness working along the curves of his body. Zayn wishes he could paint him forever, take him and make him stay and keep him in bed to paint over and over.

“If you could see yourself now,” Zayn laughs, soft and breathy, “you would understand me.”

Louis blinks, raindrops dropping down, guitar case over his shoulder, helmet in his hands.

Niall blares the horn on his bike and Louis spares a look back at him.

“I don’t think I would,” he says slowly, “I don’t think I ever will.”

He puts his helmet on, straps the chin guard, “sorry.”

And he’s gone, hops on the motorcycle and leaves. And the rain stops but Zayn’s eyes are still wet.

-

Zayn can't bring himself to look at the canvas, he stuffs it into his bag, and doesn't leave the room, he barely eats, his stomach feels at home with that, Zayn's heart feels far away.

He finally goes out when it rains again, a soft rainfall when he bumps into the freckled girl again, she's got a red umbrella, standing out brightly over the gray of the day, the dark dirt road.

“It's you,” she says when he bumps into him, he holds on tightly to his small bag of apples, “hi!”

Zayn blinks at her, head taking awhile to figure out where the girl is from.

“Hello,” Zayn says slowly, “did your friend like the painting?”

His mind is on autopilot, setting on polite, smiling tight lipped at her.

The girl nods at him, before she frowns, hands reaching out towards Zayn. She looks like she wants to ask Zayn something, almost concerned.

Zayn averts his eyes, watching the way the dirt drinks up any rain drops that hit it. There's a moment when all he hears is the soft rush of the rain and then there's a hand on his arm, pulling him forward.

“Hey,” she says, “I know it's not my place but if you need something, I'll be here for another day or so, if you need something, you can just look for me.”

Zayn looks up at that, bites his lip before he asks, “A day or so?”

The girl shrugs, “Jade wants to go to Greece.”

Zayn nods, says his goodbyes and walks away thinking.

Two days drag on before he makes his decision, he finds Jesy and Jade and asks them shyly to take him with them.

Jesy agrees quickly enough, Jade frowns at him before she finally agrees with it. Zayn sighs in relief, tries to get himself ready to leave the small town behind, leave Louis behind, leave the empty feeling in his chest behind.

“We'll be leaving sometime at the end of the week,” Jesy says and Zayn nods, tells them it's fine, shoves his hands into his pocket and tries to pay them (most of the money is the money Jesy had given him when they first met). Jesy laughs and shakes her head, looks him dead in the eye and pushes the money back at him.

“We don't need that, mate, we're just wanna help you out.”

Zayn doesn't sleep as much as he'd liked, by the time Friday comes crashing by he feels tired and nervous, his skin feels crawling with the wetness in the air, his hair pressing down on his head. He packs the rest of his canvases on top of the one with Louis, sweeps his paint tubes into bag. He starts looking for the bible then, wants to take some of the pages he liked best, the ones with Louis' sleeping, the ones that made Louis look so so heavenly.

He looks in the night stand, but finds the drawer empty, he starts to grow worried, wild when he doesn't find it already in his canvas bag, under the bed, in the bathroom. He has no idea when he lost track of it, why he's just noticed. Except it must have been when he lost track of his heart too and he sighs and sits on the toilet, head between his knees when he feels a fuzzy shadow over him, the harsh breathing and the smell of wood and sea.

“I didn't know I looked like this in the mornings,” he says and Zayn feels his heart skip a couple of beats, jump into his mouth and ready to spill into the floor, beat and beat until Louis picks it up for him.

Louis pushes the bible at him, open to a page of Louis looking out the room's window, over a passage that Zayn remembers smiling over.

_You are altogether beautiful, my darling,  And there is no blemish in you_

“They're beautiful,” Louis adds softly, “very pretty.”

Zayn looks up, takes notice of the sunburn spreading over Louis' nose, the way his hair looks windswept, the strap of his guitar case, the small thud as Zayn places the bible on the sink counter.

“You're beautiful,” Zayn breathes.

-

Zayn wakes up to thudding of rain against the ceiling, the burst of noise that the cars underneath the street make as they rush by. The ceiling is spotty and molding, but Zayn smiles, stretches to feel the left over warmness on the other side of the bed.

He brushes his teeth, walks slowly into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, there's a couple of over ripped apples sitting there, a carton of milk, a bottle of chocolate syrup. He takes an apple, rubs it with the palm of his hand.

He looks over at his canvas bag, tries to think of which paintings he's going to take to the arts fair. He decided against the one with the blue eyed boy with glowing skin, still waiting to be colored in.

The time passes by and the church from down the street rings three o' clock, the sun tries to push against the clouds, a sliver of light over the rain, making them glint, projecting a rainbow, faint and small but enough for Zayn.

He has paint streaked over his cheek, clothes rumpled and a hole on his shoe, but he sets up his little corner, canvases full of blue and yellows, dark lines in black, all about the same thing, deconstructed to the smallest of details, the pieces of a whole.

There's the soft strums of a guitar to his left, the quiet chatter of little kids, soft padding of feet coming towards him.

Zayn smiles when he hears the words.

_Here comes the sun little darling_

_here comes the sun_

_and I say it's alright_

Zayn lets his eyes drift to the sharpness of the blue Louis blinks at him, the shinning smile that matches the stubborn sun over the rainy day.

He knows he has the colors just right to paint this picture, the browns for the guitar, the blues of the sky and Louis' eyes, the yellows for the sun and Louis' skin. He knows if he looks hard enough he'll remember this moment and he'll be able to paint it for the world to have forever.

And Zayn thinks that's beautiful.

 


End file.
